Author: Dale

Lynn Westmoreland and cannabis

Posted on by Dale

It is a truth universally acknowledged that U.S. Representative Lynn Westmoreland is generally incoherent, so I suppose we should applaud his overcoming of such a handicap to become a member of the U.S. Congress.  Or is this one of those “necessary but not sufficient” situations?

This week I received an email from OpenCongress.org touting their new email system which allows you to hit both your Senators and your Representative with one click.  I hadn’t visited the website in a long time—in fact, I had forgotten I had ever joined—so I went over to check it out.

And there was H.R. 499, filed by Jared Polis (D-CO because of course), which removes cannabis from the federal drug schedule.  In other words, it would legalize pot in the United States.

Leaving aside for the moment whether the U.S. can do this in light of its signatory status of the U.N. 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (spoiler alert: Yes, it can.  See Bolivia (also) and Uruguay), I think this is an important step for Congress to take, and I told my elected officials so.  I expected boilerplate responses, and that’s what I got from Isakson.  (Chambliss must have his mailbox set on Ignore.)

Westmoreland’s response, though certainly boilerplate, was at least responsive.  I quote it here in full (except for the introductory and concluding blahblah):

On February 5, 2013 Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced H.R. 499 which would remove marijuana from all schedules of the Controlled Substance Act. The bill also eliminates marijuana from the classification of a dangerous drug under the federal criminal code and does not allow marijuana to continue to be a ‘targeted drug’ with respect to anti-drug marketing campaigns. H.R. 499 directs the Treasury Department to issue and revoke permits for marijuana commerce purposes, as well as direct the Food and Drug Administration to treat and subject marijuana to the same authorities and provisions as alcohol.

The Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich regarding medical marijuana made it clear that the U.S. Congress has the authority to regulate the use of marijuana within the states. Any change to the drug laws to allow medical marijuana would require a change in law passed by Congress and signed by the President.

While I am a strong believer in personal freedom, I do not support the recreational or medical use of illegal drugs, regardless of whether the drug is marijuana, cocaine, or any other illegal substance. Congress has made decisions to protect our nation from certain illegal drugs, and allowing each state to make its own decision would adversely affect the protections that exist against those substances.

In any situation involving marijuana and other illegal substances, the Supreme Court has made clear that Congress has the authority to regulate the use of these substances at the state level, which supersedes state laws that may allow for their distribution. I am unable to support a piece of legislation that would attempt to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision and allow the protections around these illegal substances to be broken down.

I know, right?

tl;dr: “I can’t vote to make marijuana legal because the Supreme Court says it’s up to me to decide whether it’s legal or not, and it’s illegal so I can’t vote to make it legal.”

::sigh::

Then there’s the argle-bargle about states making a mess of things if we don’t keep a tight rein on them.  Yes, this is a states-rights politician telling me that we can’t let states make these decisions for themselves, like they do for every other commodity in interstate commerce.[1]

(Also, too, Westmoreland may not be aware[2] that there is already a patchwork approach to cannabis laws.  See here for all the 50 ways you might be punished for possession.)

You will have noticed, too, the sleight of hand with ALL THE DRUGS when H.R. 499 legalizes cannabis alone.

I don’t know about you, but I am forced to conclude that something this obtuse cannot be an honest response.

If I were of a cynical turn of mind—stop that snickering—I might imagine that this article might suggest a reason why our representatives hesitate to derail the War on Drugs juggernaut.[3]

However, it would seem to me that there is a very simple solution to the budgeting woes of law enforcement agencies: convert the drug money to block grants for plain old law enforcement.  You might even consider embedding/combining social workers with law enforcement in order to treat drug issues as a public health problem instead of a criminal issue.  (I know—that’s crazy talk!)

At any rate, I find it very puzzling that a politician would buck a trend like cannabis legalization. Nationally, of course, a clear majority of U.S. citizens favor legalization, but even here in Georgia, 54% want pot legalized like Colorado.  It is only a matter of time before people like Westmoreland find themselves on the losing end of that election issue.

Oh well.  As I slide deeper into retirement, I figure I might as well pick up the Cudgel of Curmudgeondom and start belaboring my elected officials, none of whom are even close to representing my beliefs at the national level anyway.  For the time being, it keeps me off the streets.

—————

[1] For example, buy a lemon tree in Texas.  Now try driving home to a) Georgia; and b) California.  Write a paragraph comparing your results.
[2] When I say “may not be aware,” I mean “chooses to ignore.”

[3] Yes, I am fully aware that the Juggernaut was not on rails.

The Patio, Part II: The Harlequinading

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Here’s a quick update for you:

We’re heading to North Carolina for a family wedding, so blogging—and composing—is going to be sparse.

Also, not to get too personal, but this is the week that everyone gathers in Valdosta to get GHP up and running—the students will arrive on Sunday.  As you might imagine, I may or may not be having a little trouble focusing on this version of reality.

Dream One, “Hark, the sound of screaming fans!”

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I’ve settled down to work on the remaining bit of Dream One, i.e., the section that follows Icarus’s “I am alone.”  In it, Theseus reveals himself as more of a showman than a hero; Daedalus is practically a monomaniacal technocrat; and Ariadne… well, Ariadne has issues.

Mostly today I’ve tried to parse the text and decide what it is that the music needs to be telling us.  I did some work on getting from the “machine music” scene change into Theseus’s opening lines, but now I’m doodling on the main theme of his number.  I think on the whole we need to hear some kind of lounge lizard or advertising jingle in his aria, but that’s going to take time, because after Daedalus interrupts whim with some priggish rebuttal, I want that theme to return for the bit of stichomythia between Theseus and Daedalus.

That in turn will be followed by the machine music (lightly), and then Ariadne, eternal feminist spoilsport, pipes up.  From there it’s just a short jump to “My mother, bored and pampered.”

Short version: I piddling around trying to invent an advertising jingle for the Event.

And I won’t have it done by the end of the week.

Patio progress

Posted on by Dale

No musical updates today—I slept poorly and my brain just wasn’t in the mood to create whole universes this morning.

Fortunately[1] I could still be useful by helping with The Patio, Part II: The Harlequinading.

This is what we had at the end of yesterday:

To the untrained eye, this might appear to be harlequinadesque, but we (Cow-Tip, Squirrel, John, and I) were informed that it was in fact patchwork.  We didn’t want patchwork; we wanted harlequinade.  European farmland, not Kansan.

So this morning, I rearranged the above patch into:

I was gratified to learn that this was in fact what we wanted.

As of lunchtime today:

We have run out of pavers, so those have to be purchased and painted before we can keep working.

Maybe I’ll get back to Theseus and his boosterism tomorrow.

And happy 36th anniversary to my lovely first wife!

—————

[1] for differing values of “fortunate”

Dream One, two new pieces

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Don’t everybody get over-excited, but today we have two new sections of Dream One.

Lest you think that I was super industrious over the weekend, remember that I had worked on both of these all last week and only had the ending of each to hammer out.  Still, it is impressive, isn’t it?

The first is our old friend, Ariadne’s “My mother, bored and pampered.”  I had to work out her last phrase, “We map this fate forever,” in which I wanted Theseus to join her in a gentle lament.  I think it works.

Astute listeners will hear that I radically revamped the accompaniment to Ariadne’s climactic “I loved you—I love you!”  It’s very effective in a maudlin kind of way, and I’m wondering if it’s too Broadway.  Or am I forging new paths for La Scala?

The second new piece is the closing of our first Dream, “What of us?”  It starts with Daedalus reminding Ariadne that he too was trapped there, along with Icarus.  The music references “Fly and fall,” and then segues into the “machine music” motif as our trio retreat to their personal concerns.  (I am reminded of Sweeney Todd, where Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett often sing at cross-purposes, he of emotions and she of commerce.)  From there we reprise the opening chorus, “Let us joyfully gaze.”

On the whole, I’m quite pleased.  Next up: the beginning of this last segment of Dream One, transitioning from Icarus in the sky down to the control room.  It’s not a short piece of text, so this may take all week.  However, when I finish this, DREAM ONE WILL BE FINISHED, YOU GUYS!

Dream One, “My mother, bored and pampered” | score (pdf) | mp3

Dream One, “What of us?” | score (pdf) | mp3

Do not let me forget that I have to work out the “falling” motif.

Labyrinth update

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But first, a wonderful comment that my spam filter forwarded to me for evaluation:

What’s up to every one, for the reason that I am in fact eager of reading this webpage’s post to be updated on a regular basis.
It contains fastidious information.

Fastidious, that’s me all over.

I’m guessing that many people know that although the labyrinth occupies the majority of our back yard, there is a small portion on an upper level that does not belong to the labyrinth.  Nor does it “belong” to me.  It belongs to my lovely first wife, who has long desired a party patio.

The very nice stone wall that I built last September in the first burst of retirement was part of that effort, and in fact we had the sod laid in and some other little plantings done, but on the whole the result on the other side of the walkway—the patio itself—was unsatisfactory.

The LFW does not easily settle, her 36-year marriage to me (as of this Tuesday) notwithstanding, and so now we are embarked on getting exactly what she wants.

Here’s what our back yard looks like at the moment:

You will remark, no doubt, on the festive colors you are seeing.

Good shot of the successive approximation of the layout of the pavers by our team (Cow-Tip, Squirrel, and John—let me repeat that: Cow-Tip, Squirrel, and John), who have never in their careers been called upon to do anything of this nature but who are attacking the æsthetics of it all with great gusto.

Spoiler alert: this patchwork regularity is not what the LFW wants, but I am given to understand after a discussion on Friday afternoon that Cow-Tip, Squirrel, and John are now in complete alignment with her desires.  Also, it should be noted that the plastic sheet in the background is the actual location of the patio. The foreground is just the team’s staging area, guaranteed to kill off the sod we installed last year.

Stay tuned for further developments in The Patio, Part II: The Harlequinading.

Dream One / “Not Really Bad”

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Yesterday was pretty good, actually.  Having decided to skip the hard part of Ariadne’s bit and move on to the ending of Dream One, I found that it flowed very nicely and we have liftoff.  I still have some tweaking to do on it, but I think everyone will be pleased with the results.

Also, yesterday afternoon was the last session of the Newnan Theatre Company‘s KidsCamp Workshop that I taught.  As these things do, we ended up with a performance for the parental units, and I have to say that the kids acquitted themselves well.  Quick recap: the goal of the workshop was character development; the theme was “Villains.”  We spent the week in a wash of creative process—stealing David Seah‘s nifty mantra of EXPLORE | LEARN | BUILD | SHARE, we were able to defer judgment and decision-making until Thursday, really.  They generated multiple characters in their little notebooks, and we ended up with six monologs and three group presentations. (We had eighteen middle school students.)

They tended towards the sketch comedy end of the spectrum (with the concomitant maniacal cackling), but with only a week to produce, whattayagonnadoamirite?  I think that almost all of them were worth seeing and the fact that the kids developed every single bit it of themselves is worth something.  I regarded the whole workshop as an excuse to play with young minds and introduce them to the creative process.

The song was a hit.  I was quite pleased with the way the kids performed it and with the audience reaction.  It is a catchy, catchy song with multiple earworms.  I know, because I have trouble getting to sleep at night with it running through my head.

I got nothing. Leave me alone.

Posted on by Dale

No, I didn’t get anything done yesterday.  I spent the entire morning on the phone with tech support trying to figure out why every component of the network was functioning properly and yet I couldn’t get onto the internet.

The more cynical among you—and you know who you are—will suggest that not having internet might allow for more productivity, but screw you.  It is actually crucial to my process that I delete emails from ASCD and Al Franken every 20 minutes.

We still don’t know why nothing worked and yet everything worked.  Very Zen.  Eventually we restarted everything enough times and in the right order that presto! I was able to wish people a happy birthday on Facebook.

In other news, I’ve decided to skip the end to Ariadne’s “My mother” bit and whack out the end of the scene, since it’s just recitative and a reprise. And I’m not likely to get much done there today, either, because yesterday my iPad fell flat onto the floor in the black box at the theatre, and shattered the screen.  A trip to the shop is required.  ::sigh::

Dream One, “My mother”

Posted on by Dale

So here’s the next little section of “My mother, bored and pampered.”  I abandoned my interpolated text—although I reserve the right to come back and stick it in.

I’m posting this today even though I’m not sure I like any of it.  Some adventurous harmonies, but my compositional strategy of “listen to it over and over until it makes sense” may have failed me this time.  Will a conductor and cast take the time to understand it?  Does it in fact make sense musico-dramatically?

Oh well, unlike The Bridges of Madison County, this is not going to lose anyone millions of dollars, so I shall post it and then circle back to it later.

Dream One, “My mother,” 06/10/14 | score (pdf) | mp3  (The new stuff starts at about 1:10.)

Next, a little coda in which Ariadne and Theseus have a bittersweet duet, closing out that bit.  Then a bit of recitative from Daedalus, and then our “tinker-toy” theme kicks in to take us out to a reprise of “Let us joyfully gaze.”  Sounds simple enough.